Com. v. Reyes, L.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 12, 2022
Docket132 MDA 2021
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Reyes, L. (Com. v. Reyes, L.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Com. v. Reyes, L., (Pa. Ct. App. 2022).

Opinion

J-A01006-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : LOUISA ALEXANDRIA REYES : : Appellant : No. 132 MDA 2021

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered November 19, 2020 In the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-40-CR-0004050-2018

BEFORE: LAZARUS, J., NICHOLS, J., and KING, J.

MEMORANDUM BY LAZARUS, J.: FILED: APRIL 12, 2022

Louisa Alexandria Reyes appeals from the judgment of sentence,

imposed in the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County, after she entered

an open guilty plea1 to second-degree murder2 and was sentenced to a term

of imprisonment of 40 years to life. After careful review, we affirm.

Reyes was charged with second-degree murder, burglary, robbery, theft

by unlawful taking, arson, abuse of corpse, and criminal conspiracy. The

charges stemmed from the September 2018 death of Fred Boote (victim) in

his Wilkes-Barre residence. The victim was stabbed over 50 times and his

lifeless body set on fire.

____________________________________________

1The Commonwealth agreed to nolle pros Reyes’ remaining charges, as well as a companion case of Reyes’.

2 18 Pa.C.S.A. § 1102(b). J-A01006-22

Reyes was fourteen years old at the time of the murder and was certified

to be tried as an adult. Reyes committed the crime with her co-defendant,

Reynaldo Mercado, with whom Reyes was in a sexual relationship and who

was more than seventeen years her senior.

Prior to the murder, Reyes and her family had lived with the victim for

several months in early 2018. N.T. Co-Defendant Trial, 11/18/20, at 278.

Shortly after moving out of the victim’s home, Reyes and her family moved

into the Mercado family home. Reyes gave conflicting stories to homicide

detectives regarding the circumstances surrounding the victim’s death.3

Reyes first told detectives that she had gone to the victim’s house to retrieve

bed linens that her family had left there. When Reyes was in the victim’s

home, she followed him to his bedroom where, she alleged, he proceeded to

make sexual advances towards her. At that point, Reyes claimed Mercado ran

up the stairs, assaulted the victim with his fists, retreated to the kitchen where

he retrieved a knife and, finally, returned to the bedroom and began stabbing

the victim. N.T. Decertification Hearing, 2/21/20, at 36.

In her second version of events, Reyes told detectives that, on the day

of the murder, Mercado became angry, grabbed a screwdriver to rob someone

for cash, and ultimately ended up at the victim’s home, where Reyes “went to

the door and the plan was to [have her] act as a decoy to get [the victim] to ____________________________________________

3 Prior to going to the victim’s home, Reyes, with Mercado’s help, with the intent to commit robbery, went to an elderly woman’s residence, under the guise of needing to use her phone. Id. at 165-67. Fortunately, the woman did not let Reyes into her home.

-2- J-A01006-22

allow her entry.” Id. 38. Reyes said that after she gained entry to the home

and followed the victim to his bedroom, Mercado entered the residence,

rushed up the stairs, and confronted the victim. Id. at 39. At that point,

Reyes ran to the kitchen where she grabbed a knife to threaten Mercado to

stop assaulting the victim. Id. at 40. However, when she returned to the

bedroom with the knife, Mercado grabbed the knife from Reyes and lunged at

the victim to stab him. Id. Reyes said, at that moment, she retreated to

another bedroom. Id. Reyes told detectives that after stabbing the victim

repeatedly, Mercado told Reyes to retrieve cleaning supplies and flammable

materials. Reyes located gasoline in the victim’s garage and gave it to

Mercado, who then poured it on the victim’s body and lit it on fire. Id. at 41.

The victim’s cell phone and twenty dollars were taken from the victim’s

home; the cell phone, which was discarded by Reyes, was recovered

approximately 100 yards from the crime scene. Following the murder,

Mercado and Reyes burned the clothes they were wearing during the crime.

They absconded to New Jersey, after Reyes’ mother cut Reyes’ hair to change

her appearance. Id. at 44-45.4 Reyes and Mercado were located by the

authorities at Reyes’ uncle’s New Jersey residence a few days following the

murder.

4 In one of the version of events given by Reyes, Reyes told an investigator that: she went to the victim’s house and asked the victim for a ride home; the victim texted Reyes’ mother to let her know he was going to be giving her daughter a ride home; after the murder, Reyes secretly deleted those texts from the victim on her mother’s phone. Id. at 172.

-3- J-A01006-22

On November 16, 2018, Reyes filed a decertification motion to have her

case transferred to juvenile court. On February 21, 2020, the court held a

seven-hour decertification hearing, during which four witnesses testified on

behalf of Reyes and three Commonwealth witnesses testified.

Doctor Frank Dattilio, a clinical and forensic pathologist, testified as a

defense expert at Reyes’ decertification hearing. Doctor Dattilio, who

prepared a 27-page report that included a psychological evaluation and

decertification assessment of Reyes, diagnosed Reyes as having antisocial

personality traits with aggressive, sadistic, and negativistic features. N.T.

Decertification Hearing, 2/21/20, at 122-23. Doctor Dattilio also concluded

that Reyes suffered from oppositional disorder, depression, low self-esteem,

and conduct disorder (adolescent-onset type). Id. at 122. Reyes’ antisocial

traits, Dr. Dattilio opined, were related to Reyes’ involvement in the victim’s

death. Id. at 124. The expert also opined that due to Reyes’ young age,

many of her antisocial traits were not yet “galvanized” and, given the right

type of intervention and treatment, “there is room for change.” Id. at 125.

Doctor Dattilio also determined that Reyes had a moderate to high risk for

future violence without treatment. Id. at 128.5

5Doctor Dattilio gave the following expert opinion regarding whether Reyes was amenable to treatment and rehabilitation as a juvenile:

So[,] I’ve given a lot of thought, I had a lot of criteria, I spent a lot of time on this. And it’s my opinion that with all the factors that I outlined in my testimony and as contained in (Footnote Continued Next Page)

-4- J-A01006-22

The Commonwealth’s expert witness, Dr. John S. O’Brien, an expert in

forensic psychiatry, also prepared a report of Reyes based on his clinical

evaluation. Doctor O’Brien did not detect any “emotional upset” when Reyes

relayed the events leading to the victim’s death, id. at 235, and he concluded

that because of Reyes’ “enduring and pervasive maladaptive character traits,”

this report, that I believe that she’s amenable to treatment and rehabilitation prior to the age of 21.

I think that out of her environment, getting treatment, focusing on these issues as we outlined and based on her intelligence, I think she can make it.

* * *

Because many of the cases that I do have already started at age ten, 11, they’re involved, they’re placed, they’re in placement, there’s failure to adjust in placement, they haven’t—they violated probation. We don’t have any of that.

So[,] I recommend that she become involved in intensive treatment.

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Com. v. Reyes, L., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/com-v-reyes-l-pasuperct-2022.